


I'll Be Forever, Wait For Me

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26199916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: For Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020, in collaboration with thegreencarousel on Tumblr.Findekáno comes home, and finds things different and the same.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 22
Kudos: 95
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	1. Tell The World I'm Coming

**Author's Note:**

> So there is absolutely lovely art for this story by thegreencarousel, that will be embedded in-text to showcase it like a proper illustration. Also, this is set in the same 'verse as my other fics, BUT it's accessible to anybody who wants to read it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a bonus piece of art that thegreencarousel created for this work! It's featured here at the start of the story; the original piece that inspired our Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang partnership is at the beginning of chapter three.

_Officially, the Cópa Vanwa has no name. It is an inlet, a small curve of sand in the greater shores of Aman, shaped almost like the remnants left behind by a great hand that took a fistful of earth and dragged it out into the sea. It is a lonely, barren, desolate place, once perpetually shrouded in twilight thanks to its distance from the Trees, with little that grows or dwells there. The few_ eldar _who do make their homes on the northern coast avoid it, finding it too morbid even for the most maudlin among them._

_Unofficially, it’s called ‘Lost Bay’ by all those who know it._

_There are no cursed or haunted places in Aman, no holdouts from the old darkness that rot and fester and turn forests and ruins into frightful mazes fueled by ancient grudges and long-lost hatred. Even the blackened and dead stumps of Laurelin and Telperion are hallowed and mourned rather than feared, and in their afterlife they have served as everything from the inspiration for countless paintings and sculptures and songs to impromptu playgrounds for children who grew bored with festivals and sought to reinvent a jumping game. This is a land without stain, without blemish, a refuge from the ravages of time and the slow death that all created things are inching towards._

_And yet_ something _lives in Cópa Vanwa, seeping into sand and rock and water, making the whole place bitter and dreary and empty. No one has ever seen it, or called it by name, and all those who have tried to seek it out and end the uncertainty have found themselves rebuffed by empty beach and barren stone, but they know, as surely as they know the Sun will set behind them every night, that those who set foot inside it are not alone._

_The gates are proof of that._

_They tower over all else in the bay, rooted in the shallow sand and stretching high overhead. There are many of them, stretching out into deeper water, forming a path that you could follow if you could only manage to keep your feet on the ground. They are so abstract that they can barely be called gates, and yet those_ eldar _who have seen them cannot think that they are meant to represent anything else. Their shape is simple - two pillars topped with a third length of stone to form a blocky arch - and yet there is skill and craft in their making. They do not shift or topple when met with the full force of the storms that sometimes slam into the coast, and each piece is one single stone smoothed and polished and shaped by careful labor, and the material itself is of fine quality. They are almost simple enough that they seem natural, a byproduct of whatever has come to linger in this desolate place._

 _But they are_ not _natural. Each one bears a unique pattern of cracks and weathering, too purposeful to be the product of time and water, and when the waves smooth out their edges as all waves must, whatever dwells nearby goes back into the Sea and turns them sharp again._

_Try as they might, no spy or seeker has ever seen how it’s done. They can only stand in the bay as the tide comes in, watching and waiting in vain._

* * *

* * *

_I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous in my entire life._

Findekáno Astaldo Nolofinwion, former High King of the Noldor East of the Sea, stood before the open gate that marked the entrance to his parents’ home in Tirion.. His hand rested on the brick arch that rose up easily out of the wall marking off their yard, and when he looked at it he realized it was shaking. 

_This is ridiculous. What am I afraid of?_

He looked through the arch, past the ironwork of the gate and the gently curving path formed of gleaming white stones his father had personally laid down, and swallowed hard. 

_I was a different person when I left here._ That’s _what I’m afraid of._

His family lived in the oldest part of the nobles’ district, where the houses were high and long and narrow rather than broad and palatial, and the weight of every single _yén_ seemed to come crashing down on his shoulders all at once. He had passed newer, larger homes on his way up through Tirion, with high walls that blocked off fragrant gardens and big, airy windows. Once upon a time such places were reserved for the outskirts of the city - he’d been at a similar manor the night he met Russandol and his world shifted forever - but as the population had grown and the Noldor had shifted away from their earliest roots, things had changed. He’d spotted more clearly Sindarin architecture as well, with metal and stonework occasionally crafted to resemble species of tree that only grew on the hither shores. 

It seemed the city had changed with him, and that, at least, was comforting.

Findekáno took a deep breath and steeled himself. _You have nothing to be afraid of,_ he thought, taking his first uncertain steps through the arch. There were no guards to stop him, no demands to identify himself and surrender his weapons. Instead, the yard was empty save for a few ornamental saplings and shrubs, without even a servant gathering herbs for the kitchen. He frowned, confused, and then laughed at himself for forgetting so easily the days of his childhood. The soil here was good - _every_ place in Valannor was good for growing _something -_ but the fashion in the early days was to either lay claim to land in the meadows outside the city and turn it to a true farming estate, or else to buy everything in the daily markets. His mother’s family had holdings of their own, but they were in the hands of her siblings, and his father had eschewed agriculture in favor of city life. So the daily markets it had been, and he had many fond memories of taking his siblings down into the lower squares and spending hours in row after row of carts and pavilions. 

_I wonder if any of the old vendors remember me,_ he thought. He took another step closer to the house.

“Oh, I’m being _ridiculous,”_ he said aloud, shaking his head at his hesitance. “I’m not crawling back after a humiliating turn as a murderer, and I didn’t abandon my family for my own personal gain - I have no reason to be afraid, so I’m not _going_ to be afraid.”

He began to walk towards the door in earnest, his strides forced and artificially long. _This is an absurd thing to fear,_ he decided, _so I’m not going to fear it, am I?_ Every breath he took brought him nearer and nearer towards the modest porch and the entrance, and he forced his anxieties deeper and deeper within him, almost tamping them down with each step. _It will be fine,_ he added, at once reassuring and insistent. _It will be fine. There’s nothing to fear. Nothing at all. Absolutely nothing -_

\- he was standing on the front steps, close enough to the door to reach out and touch it. 

Suddenly, all his bravado seemed to evaporate.

 _Oh, what am I_ doing? _I’ve lost all my senses!_ he thought. His hands were shaking again, and it only grew worse when he extended one towards the polished wood. He turned on his heel and took two tiny steps to the edge of the porch and then turned again, pacing back and forth on a comically small scale. 

_I can’t do this._

_You have to. You’ve come all this way._

_No one recognized me. I don’t look that different from most other Noldor, especially now with my hair in just the one braid. And there’s no one out here. I could just leave._

_Where would I go?_

_Anywhere. The woods. The fields. That lake where Russandol and I spent so much of our time. The coasts, somewhere north where they won’t look for me._

_You can’t run from yourself forever, you know._

_Oh, watch me try!_

Every argument had him spinning on the heel of his boot, walking to or from the door in a furious circle. _This is folly,_ he said, and there was a frustrated groan rising in his throat, _this is_ stupid, _I’m being - !_

The door opened all at once, and Findekáno found himself staring at the startled face of a tall, slender _nér_ clad in his house’s colors. He was fastidiously dressed in a style that would have been out of date in the last days of the Trees but might very well be up-to-the-minute in present times, wearing a fine white silk shirt under a deep blue tailed waistcoat heavily embroidered with silver. His hair was fine and straight and light brown, gathered behind him in a low horsetail tied off with a blue ribbon. His trousers and boots were black, and he had an empty basket under one arm. 

He stared back at the _elda_ before him, mouth falling open in astonishment and shock. He was already pale, and he grew even paler. Findekáno realized he _knew_ this _nér,_ and knew him well.

 _He was - is? - my father’s steward,_ he thought, and suddenly he was flooded with countless memories of his childhood, of this same _nér_ dutifully looking after their home and their holdings. 

_I had countless parents, all told. I think every grown_ elda _in our house must have steered me toward my majority._

He stepped back from the door and did his best to smile. 

_I’ve missed all of them, more than I can say._

“Ilcalaurë?” he asked aloud, hoping he’d remembered the right name. “It’s - it’s me. Findekáno.”

The _nér_ before him dropped his basket. Both his hands had risen to cover his still-open mouth, and his pale, colorless eyes had filled with tears.

“Oh,” Findekáno said, and bent to retrieve the fallen basket. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you - !”

As soon as he’d risen back to his full height, Ilcalaurë threw both arms around him in a tight embrace, interrupting him mid-sentence and sending the basket to the ground a second time. Stunned, he could only stand still and wait to be released, his own hands hanging limply at his sides.

“I’m sorry,” the steward said, stepping back at last and wiping his eyes. “It’s just - we’ve waited for so _long,_ and some of us wondered if you were ever coming _back,_ and - !”

Findekáno reached out and drew the other _nér_ to him a second time, smiling at him when at last they broke apart. 

“I know I lingered,” he said, “but I _am_ here. I _have_ come back.” He smiled again, and despite the anxious quiver in his voice he knew it was genuine.

Ilcalaurë smiled back at him, the tears forgotten as they streamed down over his face. 

“Come inside,” he said. “Your mother is upstairs.” 

They retreated into the house, leaving the basket behind.

Once within, Findekáno couldn’t help but gasp. The foyer of his home was utterly unchanged, right down to the portraits that hung on the walls in heavy wooden frames. Before him was a double staircase in white marble curving down from the second floor on either side of the room, framing the door that led back into the public spaces of the house and the kitchens. To his left was the door that led to his father’s study, and a private room beyond that used by the family for more intimate dining. His mother had favored it for breakfast, in the days when being a son of Finwë in Tirion meant constant attendance at court. To his right was a door to a narrow passage bypassing the public spaces completely and emerging by the back staircase - there was no servants’ entrance in this house, and no expectation of the unusual deference and segregation that some of his nobles had come to take for granted in Beleriand, so anyone coming to or from the market or the lower city would either use the kitchen door or the front gate. Even the floor was the same, a single polished slice of an immense quartz that his father had helped to quarry when the Noldor began their fascination with crystals and gems. 

_For all my talk of how I’m a different_ nér _than I was before,_ he thought, _it feels as if I could go bounding up the stairs and shouting for Írissë and Turvo._ He felt his smile grow even more genuine. _I suppose some things_ never _change, after all._

“I - _heru-nînya_ Findekáno?!”

His thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched cry. A slender _nís_ with brilliant green eyes and blonde hair that looked as if it were about to break free of its tie and spill over her shoulders in wild curls came running down the stairs. She wore a no-nonsense shirt and leggings under a leather vest and a skirt that hung open at its sides, and the apron that went over all else was obviously well-used. Findekáno was startled, not least by the honorific - _I haven’t been_ heru _since my majority -_ but managed to recall the name of the enthusiastic _elda_ who was so keen on greeting him before she came sliding to a stop in front of Ilcalaurë.

“It _is_ you!” she cried, quickly drawing her right arm up across her chest and giving a quick half-bow from the waist before snapping back up to face both _néri_ again. “You’re back!”

“I am,” Findekáno said. “Máriën, right?”

“You remember!” the _nís_ said, just as excitedly. She grinned at him. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Are you still - chambermaid, I think? Tell me I’ve got that right.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You got it right, but I’ve not been chambermaid since you left. I report directly to Airatári now, I’m head of all the staff who aren’t in the kitchen or in your parents’ personal service.”

“And Airatári reports to me,” Ilcalaurë said. “As do Rómenís, who’s cook now, and Mírima, who if you’ll recall oversees the animals.” 

“Ah, yes,” Findekáno said, privately grateful to the steward for reminding him of how his parents’ house was run. He was surprised at how much _smaller_ it was than what he’d grown used to in Beleriand, though he supposed moving from High King of all the Noldor to a much less lofty position of “prince” demanded some steps down. Unlike his castle at Barad Eithel, which had relied on a complex hierarchy of servants and retainers to function at all, his family home in Tirion was relatively simple. Perhaps sixty or seventy _eldar_ at most lived and worked in the house, dividing their duties between cleaning, maintenance and repair, the kitchens and their neverending demand for labor, and the stables and mews at his grandfather’s great house where their horses and hawks were kept. Ilcalaurë oversaw all of it, working mostly with his mother to ensure everyone was fed and housed and paid, and while Beleriand had fallen into almost comical formality, his own home was casual and easy. Labor was something no one was above, even his father, and those he lived with were truly more like family than even most of his cousins. 

All of a sudden, Findekáno realized it wasn’t only Máriën who was staring at him. The whole room had filled with wide-eyed and astonished _eldar_ in the past minute, all familiar to him, some of whom he hadn’t seen since his departure for Alqualondë. He opened his mouth to say something and found words had deserted him, replaced by sharp tears pricking at his eyes. There was a great weight of warmth and joy that seemed to take up the whole of his chest, as if his heart had enlarged to fill every inch between his ribs. 

_I’m home,_ he realized, overcome and utterly humbled. _I’m home, and I was missed._

At last, after perhaps half a minute of awkward silence in which he opened and closed his mouth several times like a dying fish, he took a shuddering breath and managed to speak.

“Well,” he said, his heart pounding, “I’m back.” When he smiled, his composure broke completely, and he began to weep.

He had no idea how long he stood in the front room of the house, smiling and laughing and speaking names he hadn’t said in thousands of years. Every time he turned his head, there was someone else ready to offer him a hand or a joyful embrace, until at last he was utterly breathless and bruised from too many rib-cracking hugs to count. 

“All right,” Ilcalaurë said at last, sliding in front of him and ceasing the onslaught of well-intentioned affection. “I think he’s gotten the point.”

“I have,” Findekáno said, laughing as he braced his hands against his knees and tried to catch his breath. “I never thought I was so missed.”

“Well, you _were,_ whether you like it or not,” Máriën said with a bright smile.

“We’re family here,” Romenís called from the back of the throng. “Of course you were missed!”

That brought on a chorus of agreement, and Findekáno found himself fighting back yet more tears. He shook his head, and smiled, and straightened back up to his full height.

“Is my father in town, then?” he asked. “Since Ammë is upstairs.”

“He’s at court,” Ilcalaurë said as Findekáno began to walk towards the stairs. The crowd of _eldar_ parted around him to let him pass. 

“Court?” the one-time High King asked, flinching and glancing back at the other _nér._ “Is everything all right?” 

“ _Condo_ Nolofinwë is occasionally called to council,” the steward said. “And he _is_ still a former High King, who now has much to offer his people by way of centuries of experience.”

“Right,” Findekáno said, laughing a little nervously. “I’d rather forgotten things weren’t as they were.”

“It happens,” Ilcalaurë reassured him, almost before he could be embarrassed about his mistake. “And before you decide to berate yourself for a poor memory, remember that you are _not_ the first to pass through these doors who returned from the dead, and you will hopefully not be the last, either.” 

“I… thank you,” Findekáno said gratefully. “Is there anything else I ought to know?”

“Time matters little here,” Ilcalaurë said, “but by the reckoning of the Hither Shores I’m told it has been many _yéni_ since your death.”

“This is the year 3019 of the Third Age, according to that calendar,” Máriën helpfully supplied, shrugging when the gaze of the crowd fell on her. “What? The shop that sells us soap for the laundry keeps that time, just in case of new arrivals.”

Findekáno’s mouth fell open, and he sagged against the banister. _A Third Age?_ he thought, heart pounding. _That - that’s thousands of years! What_ happened? _What have I_ missed? _Is -_

_\- did he come back without me? Oh, Eru…_

He took a deep breath, and steeled himself, and shook his head at his outburst. _I’ll learn what I must learn,_ he resolved. _I refuse to be shamed for taking my time. And… and if he_ did _come back without me, I’ll find him._

_I said I would. I always do._

He shook off the shock of Máriën’s words, smiled again at the gathered throng of servants, and made his way up the polished stairs as easily as if he’d never left the house at all.

* * *

His parents’ suite was at the end of a long hall on the third story of the house, a single closed door opening onto rooms that were easily as large as all the rest of that floor combined. Findekáno lingered at the other end of that same hall, staring at the carpeted floor and wondering how in Arda he was going to manage taking the handful of steps to cross the distance between where he stood and the ornate iron latch. _What am I going to say?_ he thought, shivering. _What am I going to do? I haven’t seen her in - well, for her it will be thousands of years, won’t it? What happens now?_

He looked down at himself, suddenly self-conscious in the extreme. He was wearing what Námo had given him upon his departure - a loose-fitting shirt of raw linen, high-waisted black trousers, sturdy boots, and a heavy green cloak made of wool with a peculiar silver brooch that fastened it shut - and it was plain and simple and not at all fit for meeting his mother in. He glanced at the first door on the left - his own room, or it _had_ been - and debated slipping into his old closet and finding something more appropriate for a reunion.

 _You’re putting off the inevitable,_ he told himself, and sighed. _She won’t care what you look like, though she_ will _fuss over the state of your hair._ That made him grimace. Námo hadn’t bothered to braid his thick curls, which fell over his shoulders like a second cloak, and he could already tell they were in dire need of attention. But it couldn’t be helped, and if he decided to eschew any greeting until after hours of hair care he knew that she _would_ come find him in the bath, modesty be damned. 

_I’m afraid,_ he decided, nodding to himself. _Afraid of her, and afraid of telling her I failed, and afraid of facing up to my legacy._

_But I can’t stand here forever, can I?_

Another deep breath, another attempt at squaring his shoulders. 

_They call me the Valiant for a reason, I suppose,_ he thought, shaking his head and walking down the hall. One hand rose to ensure that his hair wasn’t _too_ mussed after its time under a hood, and another straightened his trousers. In a matter of seconds, he was looking at the closed door, close enough to reach out and touch it. 

_Here goes nothing,_ he told himself, swallowing hard in an attempt to quash all his fears. He lifted his right hand and knocked at the door.

For a moment, there was only silence, and then a muffled voice answered him from the other side. 

“Come in.”

Findekáno was holding his breath as he opened the door, and his heart dropped into his boots when it was done and he could see into the first of his parents’ rooms. It was unchanged, every inch of it, from the lamps set in elegant iron sconces to the cream-colored carpet on the floor. His mother was wearing a pale blue robe that stood out against her dark skin and sitting at a low stool before her mirror, long fingers skillfully working a strand of hair into a braid; her eyes were fixed on her reflection. He could see his father’s own mirror behind hers, and he had a feeling it was just as impeccably organized as it had ever been. 

“It’s a good thing you’re here,” Anairë said, still not looking at him. Her voice made him start back in surprise. “I think we’re going to have to send that coral-colored gown into the city, to that laundress you know. The wine stains haven’t come out, even if they _have_ lessened, but I refuse to give up the fight.” She had a determined half-smile playing over her lips, and her deep brown eyes were sparking with the sort of excitement that only came when she had a problem to attack. “Worst comes to worst I suppose I can alter it - slits are back in fashion, aren’t they? What a ghastly, garish trend, but that’s the way of things.” The braid was finished, and she seized a curved pin from somewhere in the clutter before the mirror and used it to fix her work in place against the side of her head. Her black hair was thicker than Findekáno’s, kinking and curling on itself in tight spirals, and it was the envy of all who knew her and a large part of why she was considered one of the great beauties of Tirion. 

“I can’t offer my opinion on slits,” he said, and he couldn’t help but laugh when she flinched so violently at his words that she nearly fell backwards off of her stool, “but I _can_ say that you probably oughtn’t ask me about laundresses.”

 _“Astaldo?!”_ Anairë gasped, staring up at him. One dark hand had crept up to her heart, and the other was braced against the table to aid in keeping her balance. 

He nodded, smiling; there were tears in his eyes again. 

“It’s me, Ammë. I’m home.” 

He wasn’t quite sure how she managed to get to her feet, cross the room, and pull him into her arms in what felt like half a heartbeat, but before he could blink she was holding him against her chest and crying into his hair. She was taller than him, able to fit the top of his head under her chin, and he clung to her and wept. 

“You’re back,” she said at last, drawing away from him with both her hands on his shoulders. “Let me look at you.” 

He did his best to smile without it resembling a pained grimace as she took him in from head to toe. He knew he’d gained quite a bit of muscle since his departure, and had come into the more awkward aspects of his features with what he hoped was grace, and he could see in his mother’s eyes that she was at once saddened by the change and fiercely proud of her eldest. Of course, Anairë herself hadn’t changed at all - she was still elegant, and willow-thin, her dark skin accentuating her darker eyes and hair and flawlessly complementing both her robe and the gold dust highlighting brow and cheekbone - but the sight of her made his heart swell. 

“I’m really going to cry again,” he said. “You’re looking at me like I’m some kind of conquering hero.” 

“You might as well be, _yonya,”_ she said, smiling more broadly. “Are you fresh from the Halls? Or…” Her voice trailed off, her expression darkening for a moment. She didn’t need to speak aloud for her question to be known - _did you emerge from death and find yourself needing to be alone?_

“I left Námo’s care this morning,” he told her. “I came straight here.” 

Her smile settled back into place, and she drew him back to her for another hug. 

“Thank you,” she said. He could almost feel the weight unspooling from her shoulders. “With you back, it’s only Arakáno now.”

Mention of his youngest brother made Findekáno wince. He sighed and looked up at Anairë, wondering what he ought to say, if anything. _I’ve always held myself responsible for what happened to him, after all._

But his mother didn’t seem inclined to say more, and indeed after perhaps half a minute of holding him in silence she released him again and returned to her mirror with more vigor than before.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, “even if you’re not Pirindë. You wouldn’t know her - she entered my personal service after you left, but she’s become invaluable to me. I think she’s probably fighting with Airatári about laundry soap at the moment.”

“Laundry soap?”

“I’ve made changes based on her recommendations, and I’m fond of the results, but I don’t think our housekeeper is.” Anairë laughed, looking at him fondly, and for a moment it was as if he’d never gone away at all. “I’ll debate the finer points of it all over dinner, I’m sure, unless you want it to be just the three of us.” 

“Oh,” Findekáno said, blinking, “that’s right, the senior staff _do_ eat with us.”

“Didn’t they back East?”

“No. Too many formalities. I got stuck having dinner with my council half the time. Or Atya’s, before he died.”

His mother made a face. “That sounds dreadful.”

“It was. I thought I might Fade from boredom more than once.”

“Thankfully you didn’t, or else I wouldn’t be looking at you.” She opened a drawer and fished out two different earrings, offering them to him. “Which ought I wear to dinner? I was just fighting with myself.”

“You really haven’t changed, have you?”

“When it comes to jewelry? Never.”

“These,” Findekáno said, pointing to a finely made gold bird’s wing with a delicate hook attached to the top. “You’ve already got the gold at your eyes. It will match.”

“You’re right,” Anairë said, nodding and putting the other earring down on the table. She drew out the other wing and fitted them both into her ears. “And I’ve got a gown I can wear with a cape styled after feathers. Do you recall it? The heavy satin with more of a yellow undertone.”

“I do,” Findekáno said. “When _is_ dinner? Will I need to dress?”

“You don’t have to,” she replied. “Your presence is enough. But if you _want_ to, I’ll find something for you to wear. Nothing in your closet will fit you. You’ve put on too much muscle.” 

“I do want to,” he answered. “I can’t have you outdoing me.”

“I outdo everyone,” Anairë retorted playfully. “It’s what I’m best at.” She picked up a glass jar that looked as if it were filled with gold, opened it, and began carefully reapplying the dust within to her face in the places where it had faded or worn off. “And by the way, how is married life treating you?”

“What?!”

Findekáno staggered back from the mirror, falling onto his parents’ bed as his mother laughed. 

“Nelyafinwë,” she said, her eyes warm and delighted. “How do you like being married to him?”

“How - ?”

“First, I’ve known you loved him since before the Darkening,” she said, eyes bright with a somewhat mischievous joy. “Second, one look at your face told me all I needed - you weren’t clouding your thoughts, and I won’t apologize for reading what’s plainly there. Third, your father told me.”

“I - what? How - how did _Atya_ know?”

Anairë fixed him with a look through her mirror; it was an expression he had once been quite familiar with. It said _You should have known better, Astaldo,_ and when she spoke again, she proved herself right.

“Your father knew ever since you declared in a fit of frightened anguish that you loved him,” she replied. “Apparently, this was very soon after your arrival on those shores. You had disappeared and convinced everyone you died, and then returned like a figure of legend with Nelyafinwë in your arms on the back of an eagle.” 

“... oh,” Findekáno said, blushing. “When you put it like that, I _was_ rather obvious, wasn’t I?”

“Maybe,” Anairë said warmly, putting her jar of gold dust down. “But you were also in love, and that covers over quite a lot of foolishness.” She got up from her mirror and smiled at him yet again. “I’m so glad you’re back, _yonya._ Now.” She gestured with her right arm. “Go look through my closet, and your father’s, and see if there’s anything you like that fits you. He’ll be all in blue and silver, because of course he will, it’s court, and you already know what I’ll be wearing.”

“Thank you,” Findekáno said. “Are your closets still the same, or have you swapped? I know you were thinking about it.” He stood up from the bed, crossed the room, and stepped through an open doorway that led into a short hall. On either side of him were closets, and directly in front of him was his parents’ bathroom.

“We did,” she informed him. “I’m on the left now. Why, are you going to steal that wine-red blouse of mine you’ve wanted since you were half my height?”

“Maybe,” he answered, stepping into her closet, stripping out of his cloak and shirt, and letting them fall to the floor. “These trousers and boots are decent enough, and they’d go well with red. And besides, you and Atya are going to clash already. We might as well all go our own way.” He spotted the blouse in question quickly, removing it from the wood and wire frame that it hung on, and pulled it over his head. 

“We’re not going to _clash,”_ Anairë said. “He’s just not going to bother to complement me.” 

“Oh, leave poor Pirindë out of your endless fussing, would you?” a third voice said, deep and resonant. Findekáno flinched again - _Atya._ For a moment he considered hiding in his mother’s gowns as if he were a boy again. _The last time I saw him -_

He shuddered, and shook his head, banishing the frantic fragments of memory that made up all he recalled of that awful morning. _I’m_ not _thinking about that, I’m home, and I don’t have to remember eighteen hours of miserable terror, or how I came back to Barad Eithel to find him gone._ In all his years of ruling and healing and endlessly dissecting his own actions, he’d quite forgotten that his final impression of Nolofinwë had been pain and the sting of betrayal. 

_We can talk about that later,_ he resolved, tugging on the hem of his borrowed blouse to straighten it. Unlike his former shirt, this one was crafted of a loose fabric that seemed to know exactly when to cling and when to conceal, and it sat low on his shoulders before dipping into a deep V over his heart. A band of careful stitching formed a waist, leaving the wine-colored cloth to flare out over his trousers before coming to an end hemmed in gold thread. He looked passable, at least, and while he couldn’t call it _elegant_ he at least wouldn’t be horribly underdressed compared to his parents at dinner.

“I’m not Pirindë,” he said, stepping out of the closet and into the bedroom proper. His smile was nervous, and uncertain, as he looked over his father’s court robes. “And she’s right - you’re _not_ bothering to complement her.”

Nolofinwë Finwion was silent where he stood, his mouth open as if he’d been caught by surprise mid-response. Unlike his wife and son, his own hair hung down his back in a smooth curtain, every curl and frizz tamed by judicious application of several different kinds of cream. He was paler than both of them as well, though not so pale as most of his siblings, and so the shocked blush showed on his face far more readily. He hadn’t changed at all since that dreadful morning.

“You’re staring,” Anairë said gently, reaching up to close her husband’s mouth with one finger. He was half a head taller than her, and powerfully built, but despite that he seemed to melt at her touch. When he looked down at her, she kissed his cheek and smiled at him. “He’s our son, not some shade of the past returned to haunt us.”

“He is our son,” Nolofinwë said, drawing himself up and taking a careful step towards Findekáno. “And I’m very glad to see him.”

Findekáno’s resolve broke, and he fell into his father’s arms and gave himself over to weeping once more. 

_I’m home,_ he thought, and he wasn’t sure if it was a joyous thing or a mournful one. _I’m home._

Nolofinwë’s embrace was just as unchanged as the rest of him - even the smell of his clothes was the same - and when Findekáno found himself enfolded in his father’s arms, he lost sight of how old he was, and how much time had passed, if it had passed at all. He half-expected to draw back and find himself catching glimpses of the mingling hour through the high windows. 

“I’m glad I’m home,” he said at last, looking up at his father. “I’d say I’m sorry for taking so long, but - ”

“No apologies,” Nolofinwë said sternly, but when Findekáno met his eyes properly he was smiling. “You’re here, and that’s what matters.” He held his gaze for perhaps half a minute, not looking away; it was as if he was staring right into his son’s soul.

“Weren’t we going to have dinner?” Anairë asked, breaking the silence with an easy smile. As always, her timing was perfect - any longer and Findekáno suspected his father would have delved deep enough to find all his secrets, whether or not he wished it.

Dinner was a simple but hearty venison stew with plenty of fresh bread. Nolofinwë’s household had never been one for extravagant meals when it wasn’t called for, and especially after a long day at court the former High King had little desire for the pomp and circumstance of a full six courses. He and his wife and son were joined by Ilcalaurë, Airatári, Romenís, and Mírima, who slid into their customary places and into the conversation as easily as if they were blood family. Findekáno could feel himself gradually relaxing, slipping back into old habits and old familiarity, until he almost forgot he’d left home at all.

“You mentioned jousting, my lord,” Mírima said. “Do you mean to compete in the next Tournament of the Moon?”

“The next what?”

“Every _yén_ or so there’s a tournament held just outside Tirion,” Romenís explained, “and every tournament we’ve had for the past Age, your father has won. Do you intend to challenge him?”

“Challenge my father?” Findekáno asked, laughing in between bites of bread. “I’ve done that enough, I think.”

“Really?” Nolofinwë asked lightly. “Of all my children you were always the _least_ defiant. Perhaps you could use a bit of rebellion.”

“I’d say I rebelled enough when I got married and didn’t say a word,” Findekáno retorted, and then choked on his bread when he realized what he’d said. _Damn it._ Muk. _Oh, I’m in for it now._

All eyes were on him as he fumbled for his glass of water, draining most of it in one long gulp. He winced, swallowing hard, and then looked back up at his father, waiting for the inevitable.

“At least you’re telling me this time,” Nolofinwë said, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I was not looking forward to yet more centuries of pretense.”

“Ammë said you knew,” Findekáno said, “but - how?”

“If you looking me right in the eyes and declaring in anguish that you loved Maitimo wasn’t proof,” Nolofinwë said, “the time you told me that you liked Himring because of the weather certainly was.”

 _“Ercamando,_ did I really?” Findekáno asked as Anairë and Romenís dissolved into a fit of giggles as if they were ninety again. 

“Yes.”

“The _weather?!”_

Nolofinwë smirked; it was evident he was enjoying himself. “You told me you found it invigorating and refreshing. In the middle of winter, after a storm left you trapped in Maitimo’s chamber for a month because the door froze shut.”

“Oh,” Findekáno said, blushing scarlet. “I - well. I found some parts of that visit invigorating and refreshing, at least.”

“Mhm,” his father replied, almost grinning at him.

“Is - has anyone heard - ?”

“Do I know if Maitimo has returned from the Halls?”

“Yes.”

“No, I don’t, and it’s beginning to vex me.” The former High King sat back in his chair, casting his eyes over the room in a way that signaled the beginning of a long and complicated thought. “We aren’t told much about the _eldar_ beyond the First Gate, save that they are there, and well-cared-for, but… well, it _has_ been a very long time.”

“Would he have told you, if he returned to life properly?” Mírima asked. “My mother didn’t bother to inform us when _she_ did.”

“Really?” Romenís asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Really. I went home expecting to see my father and found the both of them cooking in their kitchen as if she’d never left for Beleriand at all.”

“That’s a good point,” Airatári said, looking at Findekáno. “Is _Condo_ Nelyafinwë the sort of person who’d bother to let anyone know if he were no longer deceased?”

Findekáno found he couldn’t answer that question; he took another bite of bread, and tried to push it out of his mind.

* * *

The next days seemed to run together, day and night and day shoved against one another with very little breathing room. He went to court, and was presented officially before the throne of the High King, swearing his fealty to that crown and resolving never to usurp it, and once that was done there were endless parties and reunions and old friends demanding a chance to talk to him or see his face or have a drink in one of Tirion’s many pubs. When he wasn’t being paraded through Noldorin society like a novelty or an exciting work of art, he was busy at home, trapped by his mother’s insistence that an entirely new wardrobe be made for him so he might keep up with current fashions. 

“I’m beginning to see why Írissë and Turukáno don’t live here anymore,” he admitted to Máriën one afternoon. “It’s exhausting to keep up with my mother’s rather ferocious approach to life.”

“I suppose it would be, if you weren’t used to it,” the _nís_ said. “Or if you’d gotten used to a different sort of ferocity. I wouldn’t think being High King was much different.”

“Being High King was easier,” Findekáno said wryly. “Give me the next name?” 

“This one’s called - oh, it’s Sindarin! We never see Sindar applying, how odd.” The two _eldar_ were seated on Findekáno’s bed, attempting to decide on a valet for him. He was old enough now that _not_ having one was unusual, and none of the servants in the house wanted the job, and so the word had gone out from Ilcalaurë that the position was open. They had been positively inundated with prospective candidates, and he’d begun to get a grasp of exactly how popular he’d become in the centuries since his death. 

“A Sinda?” he asked. “That _is_ odd. I know plenty of them live in Tirion now, but as far as I’ve heard they keep to themselves.”

“They do.”

“Who is it?”

“He lives in Tirion,” Máriën said. “Also odd. The name is Faelion - I don’t see a patronym, but - !”

“Him,” Findekáno said instantly, unable to keep from grinning. “That one. I want him.”

“Sight unseen? You don’t know anything about his qualifications!”

“He was my valet in Beleriand,” he explained, “and he’s not actually Sindarin. You might have known him as Súliwendë Viryaneriel, but he changed his _kilmessë_ and his _hröa_ shortly after we crossed the Ice.”

“Oh!” Máriën said. “Well, then, I think we can forget the rest of the applicants. Assuming you were happy with him?”

“He served me for about four _yéni,”_ Findekáno said, “and he’s probably my best friend. Of course I was happy with him.”

“I can send word back to his address, then,” the _nís_ said, “or you could stop by his rooms and tell him yourself.”

“Send word,” he told her, still smiling. “I expect him here in five days’ time at the most. But knowing him, he’ll turn up tomorrow anticipating my ‘yes.’”

“He sounds like a good friend.”

“He is.”

“Speaking of friends,” she said, straightening up and reaching into a back pocket before pulling out a small envelope, “this is for you.” She offered it to Findekáno, who took it and opened it.

“Hm,” he said, frowning. “I’ve been invited to spend tomorrow with someone named Artanáro - do you have any idea who that is?”

“How do you _not?”_ the _nís_ asked, gaping at him.

“I _was_ dead for several thousand years, and I’ve had perhaps two weeks to catch up on all I’ve missed, and most of that has been spent playing at being a pincushion.” He grimaced, recalling that after he finished with Máriën he was expected for yet another fitting with his mother’s dressmaker. _I like clothes as much as the next_ elda, _but I’ve never had so many of them made at once._

“Ereinion _Artanáro_ Gil-galad,” Máriën said. “High King of the Noldor East of the Sea throughout the Second Age. He was after you.”

“Lalwendë’s son!” Findekáno cried, remembering at last. “My ward - the one I sent away to Círdan! He managed to rule?”

“He ruled for several thousand years-of-the-Sun, or so I’m told,” she answered. “I’m not surprised he wants to see you. It was a shock for your parents when he turned up on the doorstep calling himself your son.”

_“What?”_

“Adopted, don’t worry,” Máriën said, laughing at his shock. “No one suspects you had a wife. No one who _matters,_ anyway.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I have no idea how they speak of you on the Hither Shores, _condo-nînya,_ nor can I control that. So put it from your mind. Everyone _here_ knows the truth.”

Findekáno made a face, glancing back at Artanáro’s request for his company. _That_ was perhaps the strangest part of his return - not only did everyone seem to know he was married, and to whom, but they also didn’t seem to _care._ It was as if the passage of time, even in unchanging Aman, had smoothed over rough edges and wounded hearts, and now it scarcely mattered that he’d taken a scandalous figure to be his spouse. 

_And yet no one can tell me what’s happened to him,_ he thought, sighing. _Not even Atya, though I know he’s tried to find out._ He thought back to what he could remember of the Halls, and of his years and years of careful self-reflection and gradual healing in the gardens. _Was he there? Did I simply not know? Would Námo have_ told _me?_

That was uncertain, and it didn’t do to dwell on. _I lingered because I wanted to heal, to recover. I took my time for_ myself, _but would I have done it if I’d known he was waiting for me? Would I have left if I’d known he was there? I imagine this is why they say nothing of your relatives and loved ones. We’re supposed to heal for_ ourselves, _not for anyone else, and to reflect on our lives and on any changes we wish to make once we’re embodied again in full._

Are _there changes I wish to make?_

He sighed, and put Artanáro’s message back in its envelope. 

“I’m glad of that,” he said to Máriën, and he meant it. “And it will be good to see my cousin again, after all this time.”

“Then I’ll have word sent to his own estate that you’ll be joining him in the morning,” she said, “and I’ll make sure your mother knows not to trouble you at all tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Findekáno said. “But for the moment, I ought to go be troubled. We’re working on yet another robe today. This one in gold.”

“Good luck,” the _nís_ said. “I imagine you’ll need it.”

* * *

“So,” Findekáno said, turning to the _nér_ beside him, “why _did_ you call yourself my son?”

Artanáro shrugged, picking up one of the tiny fried shrimp from the paper packet he’d purchased and popping it into his mouth.

“It seemed appropriate,” he said, “and at the time, we needed something to rally around. A figurehead, or a memory, or a cause.”

“And that cause was _me?”_

They were in the open market held in Tirion’s lower city square, browsing carts and vendors. The crowds lent them anonymity, as did their features - neither _nér_ looked particularly unusual compared to the other Noldor around them, and they hadn’t bothered to wear anything affiliated with their respective royal Houses. Findekáno found it a blessed relief from high society, and had been happily indulging himself by purchasing every food he’d missed in Beleriand. 

“It needed to be someone, or something, we could all agree to fight for,” Artanáro said. “And your memory is held in high regard by every one of our people.”

“You chose to be my heir because of politics, then.”

“Well - !”

“I’m not upset,” Findekáno said gently. “Truly, I’m not. I come from a family of politicians. I recognize a good idea when I see it. And that was a good idea.”

“It’s more than that, though,” his cousin - son? - said.

“Oh?”

“I wanted to be like you. Wanted to carry on your name, and the causes you fought for. I hoped to live up to your legacy, and I hoped that should I do well, you might hear of me across the Sea, and be proud of me.” Artanáro shrugged again, but Findekáno could see the uncertainty in the line of his shoulders.

“If I’d been alive,” he said, “I would certainly have been proud of you.” The younger _nér_ flinched; he continued. “I’m proud of you _now._ I’m proud beyond measure that one of our House managed to rule for so long, and to do so with the wisdom and the care that you brought to the office, and utterly humbled that you did so in my name, with my example to guide you.” He smiled at Artanáro warmly. “I’m glad to call you my son. I mean it. Even if it will take some getting used to.”

“I’m just happy you’re not furious,” his companion said. “I’ve spent all this time dreading what you’d think.”

“You needn’t worry about that,” Findekáno told him. “I’m famously unflappable - or, rather, I _was,_ and now I shall have to regain that reputation after some of the violently impulsive things I’ve done since leaving home.”

“To hear your mother talk, you were always impulsive.”

“She did name me Astaldo.”

“It suits you, I think. Far better than _Gil-galad,_ but I suppose I can’t escape that. And I have no idea what my father meant by naming me _Ereinion -_ my mother wasn’t queen, and I suppose technically I _am_ Finwë’s grandson, but I never _knew_ him.”

“He might have meant me,” Findekáno said, “and my own husband. Both of _us_ were kings, however briefly.”

“He might have,” the other _nér_ mused as they walked. “Is Nelyafinwë reembodied, then?”

“I don’t know. No one can say one way or the other.”

“I rather thought he must be, if you’re here,” Artanáro said. “The two of you move as a matched set, down through the centuries. Of course, I’ve only ever met you apart.”

“You met R - Maitimo?” Findekáno asked, stopping in his tracks.

“I did,” Artanáro said. “We were retreating from a rather disastrous attack, during the War of Wrath. Before the tide of battle really began to turn our way, you see. He saved my life - my rearguard had all been killed - and then proceeded to yell at me about how poorly I’d organized my retreat. Before I could argue with him, he was gone, along with his little retinue of riders.”

“That does sound like Maitimo,” Findekáno admitted, resuming his walk. “Did you see him again at all?”

“No. If I had, maybe I could have changed things. He came to a bad ending.”

“I’ve heard. I knew he was dead - I’m not sure _how,_ but I could feel it, or feel that he _had_ died - but I had to wait until I came back here to learn why, and the manner of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Artanáro told him. “I mean it. I hope they were at least kind.”

“Oh, they were. Very apologetic. Very afraid to speak about it directly. I don’t think it occurred to them that I knew the sort of _nér_ I married, and I had been prepared to face such a disaster for quite some time before my own demise.”

“The people here are, by and large, utterly unfamiliar with sorrow,” Artanáro said. “They don’t really know how to talk about it. So they don’t.”

“You’d think the Darkening and the Exile would have changed that.”

“That was three Ages ago. For all that time doesn’t matter here, time _does_ in fact matter. Why else do you think you can speak so openly of _having_ that husband?”

Findekáno chuckled. “Here we are, speaking for the first time since you were a boy, and you’ve already proven wiser _and_ more eloquent than I am.” He sighed, and shook his head. “Perhaps I waited too long to come back.”

“Why _did_ you wait so long, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“In truth?” Findekáno asked. “Because I wanted to be sure of myself. I wanted to take full advantage of a time when there were no demands on me, no pressures, no ties that I needed to mind. I could examine who I was, who I had been, and who I might become, and decide for myself alone what I wanted.”

“And did you get your answer?” Artanáro asked.

Findekáno found he couldn’t say, and fell silent for a few minutes before changing the subject, but the question haunted him all the way back to his parents’ house. He found himself consumed by it utterly, unable to push it from his mind for even a few moments. 

_What_ do _I want?_

It was a simple thing to ask, and yet no answer he could arrive at seemed to satisfy him. The words seemed to echo endlessly around the inside of his head, bouncing back and forth off of every possible conclusion. Even dinner with his parents was hollow and unsatisfactory, spent staring into a bowl of soup while he tried to puzzle out what exactly was so difficult about all of this.

 _Do I want to be married?_ he thought at last, and wondered at the audacity of even considering such a thing. He had fled the dinner table in a fit of anxiety, and when all corners of the house seemed to be occupied, even his room, he had at last come to rest in the little garden directly beneath his parents’ bedroom window. Anairë had personally crafted it, selecting and planting every seedling and even putting in the path of white stones that led back from the front yard. She hadn’t made the bench he was now seated on, but she had placed it so that anyone spending more than a moment amid the plants could see both the yard and the place in the sky that had always been the first to turn silver or gold when the light changed. Now, in the light of the Moon, the whole thing seemed a ghastly shadow of its former self. 

_Almost like me,_ Findekáno thought, and sighed, staring up at Tilion and at the stars. 

“What is it that I’m missing?” he asked aloud, not expecting an answer. “Is it that I’m simply deciding that I ought to go on as I have been going on? Is it that - that I grew, and changed, that Beleriand changed me, that being High King changed me?” He sagged into the bench, shaking his head. “Because it did. I don’t think I can step back into the life I left behind. I - I _know_ I can’t.” The thought of nothing to do for days and days except wait for the next ball, the next salon, the next party, and all the while in between to be subordinate to his mother and her bright mastery of all she surveyed chilled him. “I love her, and I love Atya, but I’m not a boy anymore. I’m not even the feckless youth I was before the Darkening. And all that I’ve learned, all I’ve done - it’s taught me to be a King, but what about being a _nér?”_

The question filled the silence of the garden, seeming to rebound back on him. And suddenly, _suddenly,_ he knew what it was he had to do.

“I… I can’t know what I want until I know who I am,” he realized, eyes wide. “And I can’t know who I am when all I’m surrounded by are shadows of my youth.” He sighed again, only this time it seemed to carry the weight he had been shouldering. There was an enormity, and an emptiness, to his words and his revelation. The garden seemed hollow, robbed of its vitality, and when he glanced up at his parents’ house all he saw was a memory made real. 

_I have to go,_ he thought. _Travel. Wander. Explore. Find the people I’ve missed, and find the bits of_ myself _that I’ve ignored for so long. Find out what happened to him, if anyone knows._

_I won’t know what to do with myself until I do._


	2. A Word for Nowhere

“So,” Faelion said, when their mugs of tea were drained to the dregs and the fire was low on the hearth. “You look miserable,  _ heru-nînya.” _

Findekáno sighed, and then laughed softly.

“I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but sigh dramatically,” he explained, shaking his head. “But I can’t help it. I feel -  _ lost,  _ almost. Or  _ empty,  _ like I’ve got half of my  _ fëa  _ missing. Ever since coming back from the Halls it’s as if I’ve been wandering through my own life like an  _ ausa  _ and playacting at old memories.” He’d come to visit his friend personally before his departure from the city, to explain what he meant to do; they had ended up talking for hours as the day wound into night.

“That’s normal, I think,” the other  _ nér  _ said. “I came home to my parents with a pair of new names and a new  _ hröa  _ and I think they would have slipped out of their own shapes had I not reassured them.”

“Reassured?”

“Oh, they were afraid that I’d been hiding myself all through my childhood,” Faelion answered with a shrug. “My mother in particular - she was terrified that she’d somehow pressured me into keeping my old self for as long as I did, and begged my forgiveness.”

“And did she?”

“Halls, no! I didn’t know what I wanted until after the Darkening. I think that’s probably why I left. I guess I thought that a new world could mean a new start in more ways than one.”

“And then you came back and it was all exactly as it had been, only you were different,” Findekáno said, and Faelion looked at him sharply.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s it precisely.” He paused, weighing his words, and spoke again. “Why are you bothering with this journey,  _ heru-nînya,  _ and for how long do you expect you’ll be gone?”

“I - I don’t know,” Findekáno said. “To both things. I want to see Valannor, on my own, now I’m grown and I’ve gone and seen the Hither Shores.”

“Mhm.”

“What? It’s perfectly normal to want to find yourself,” he said, wishing he could sink through the floor. Faelion was watching him in that particular way he’d perfected, where a single pointed look could tell all.

“You went away to Beleriand. Isn’t that finding yourself?”

“I - well - yes? Sort of. Not exactly. I went away and I learned all these things about ruling, and duty, and responsibility, and Valardamned  _ taxes,  _ but I didn’t do any of that and find out deep truths about  _ myself.”  _ His valet looked unconvinced, and he turned his gaze to the window, watching the fading light.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Faelion asked at last. Each word he spoke was careful and exacting. 

Findekáno winced. “Am I that obvious?”

“You are. There was all sorts of speculation as to why you lingered for so long beyond the gates of Námo’s abode, and most of it had to do with him.”

“Is he still - ?”

“Who knows?” Faelion interrupted. “I couldn’t say. Probably. I talk to Laicanyérë - you remember him, he was steward of Himring - now and again, and  _ he  _ hasn’t heard from any of the old guard who lived there.”

“The old guard would know?” Findekáno asked, running over the names in his head. 

“Specifically Haro,” Faelion said. “Haro would know, if there’s anything to be known. Though he’s a hard one to find. He’s got a house in Tirion but he barely lives in it. His wife doesn’t like the city.”

“He’s got a wife?”

“Yes. Do you remember Silith?”

Findekáno frowned. “That petite  _ elleth  _ who worked with the looms, wasn’t she? The Avar. All sharp bones and angles, but she could scale a wall in half an eyeblink.”

“Yes, that’s the one. They turned up one night to tell me they’d married.”

“Turned up?”

“I was in the middle of roasting a goose and I heard a knock on my door, and there they were, bearing a bottle of wine and some fresh apple tarts. I think they wanted to try and apologize for the sudden imposition. Apparently they were making the rounds to inform everyone they cared about that they’d coupled.”

“That sounds like them,” Findekáno said, chuckling to himself. “More to the point, though - they would have some idea, you think?”

“I think they’re your best chance. But -  _ heru-nînya,  _ why do you care so much about what happened to him?”

“Excuse me? He’s my husband, of course I care!”

“Oh, I know you’re married. But if he’s in the Halls, he’ll be there until he decides to come out, won’t he? And if he’s not, well, surely there’s a reason he doesn’t want to be found, and a reason he didn’t go straight to your parents’ house, or his.”

“He’d want me to find him, if he were reembodied,” Findekáno answered. This, at least, was one thing he’d managed to become absolutely sure of. “He might not be one for socializing, but he’d want me to find him. I told him I would, even. I promised. In that last letter I wrote him - the one he was supposed to get if I died.”

“He’d want you to find him  _ if that’s what you want to do,”  _ Faelion corrected. “Right now I don’t think you’d know up from down without a chart.”

The former High King groaned, slumping back in his chair. “You’re probably right,” he muttered. “It’s hopeless.”

“What’s hopeless?”

“Finding out who I am,” he explained. “I’ll never manage it. There’s too much shit in the way.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Faelion replied. “You’ll manage it. I happen to think your little misery tour will help quite a lot, if you can get your head out of your ass long enough to be honest.”

“What?” Findekáno asked. 

“I won’t apologize for my bluntness. You’re my friend  _ and  _ my prince both.” Faelion poured himself another mug of tea, though by now it was quite cold. “Stop being such an oblivious idiot. I know I said that you wouldn’t know up from down without a chart, but that’s because you’re thinking too damn hard.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You’re not miserable because you don’t know what you want. You’re miserable because you went away and you feel as if you’re expected to slip right back into your old life like nothing changed when it  _ did,  _ and you’re upset and feeling as though you’re missing half your  _ fëa  _ because you  _ are.  _ No one born in Tirion who didn’t leave and come back has any real concept of what it is we all faced, and they’d rather delicately dance around the edges of the questions that need to be asked - I’m not shocked you’ve been feeling like you’re floating in a bowl of lukewarm porridge. Yes, you do need to find yourself, but it’s not because you’re wandering adrift through the seas of uncertainty. It’s because you still love your husband, and you’re trying to work out whether or not you want to be married to him now that the world isn’t splitting apart thanks to Moringotto.”

“Wandering adrift through the seas of uncertainty,” Findekáno repeated. “I like that.” He shook his head again and straightened up in his seat. “How can I be sure you’re right?”

“Only you can really decide that, I guess,” Faelion said, “but honestly I know you too well after all these years. Figure out if you want to be his husband, and you’ll figure out what it is you have to do.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“That’s because it  _ is  _ easy, in terms of the number of steps you’re facing. It’s not  _ simple,  _ but if these things were simple we wouldn’t all be chasing the pieces of ourselves lost in the Exile, now would we?”

Findekáno found he couldn’t argue with that, and he let the other  _ nér  _ steer the conversation into endless reminiscing without further comment.

* * *

He kept to the edges of Valannor. The wild places, where the winds chased themselves down bare rock and over vast and empty prairies. Most of the Noldor and Vanyar still lived near Túna, though over the Ages some of the latter  _ eldar  _ had relocated to Valmar itself in the heart of the Blessed Realm. Ingwë had never returned from Taniquetil after the Darkening, it was said, and his people had largely followed suit. The emptiness left by their absence was filled by returning exiles and their children, and those reborn who had perished on the Hither Shores. He’d heard rumors of Elu Thingol and his Maiarin spouse living once more as one, deep in the woods that lay southwest of the cities, and he wondered if they had recreated Doriath and Menegroth and that was why he’d encountered so few Sindar and Avari since his own reembodiment. 

Not that the question  _ mattered,  _ truly - regardless of where his fellow  _ eldar  _ made their homes, the end result was the same: desolation and loneliness. 

_ I never thought that Aman could  _ be  _ lonely,  _ he thought to himself one night. He was sitting underneath a spreading oak, feeding a fire made of dead branches. He’d caught a rabbit for his dinner, and in between cleaning it for cooking he’d found the time to muse on his current circumstances.  _ It didn’t seem like that sort of place. _

_ You were lonely, though,  _ he answered himself, as if in conversation. Memories of his youth and his early majority came back to him, the seemingly endless days and nights after all his childhood acquaintances had fallen away and he was left more or less to his own devices.  _ You were just lonely with other people around.  _

_ Was that loneliness?  _ he thought, fishing a pot free of its ties to his pack. He hadn’t bothered bringing a horse, instead journeying on foot through the uninhabited land, and while it did mean he could move more or less at his own pace it also meant he had to carry everything on his own back.  _ Couldn’t it have simply been boredom? _

_ No,  _ he decided, skimming over his life once more.  _ I was anchorless, and drifting, and friendless, and  _ definitely  _ lonely.  _

The night was dark, and he couldn’t see the stars overhead through the branches of the trees; he managed to prop the pot over the fire on a bank of stones warmed by the coals. The last of his water and a tightly wrapped ball of seasoning went into it. 

“Hopefully you’ll make a decent stew,” he informed what was left of the rabbit, and then laughed at his own morbidity.  _ It’s a good thing I’ve done this before, or else I think I might go mad. _

Findekáno leaned back against the tree, keeping half an eye on the pot and letting his mind wander.

_ I haven’t really been  _ alone  _ and out in the world like this since - well, since I went looking for Russandol, and got lost in those damn woods, and climbed two  _ ércala  _ sets of mountains, all in - it must have been a year, wasn’t it? Yes, it couldn’t have been much longer, but it definitely wasn’t much  _ shorter  _ either.  _

_ At least now I’m not digging tubers out of frozen earth with my bare hands, or watching my skin get sliced open day after day by unforgiving rock, or getting rained on and covered in that Valardamned slime that came pouring off the heaps of slag. By comparison, this is practically paradisiacal, isn’t it? _

_ So why am I so  _ empty?

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, and then others of its pack caught the cry and echoed it back, filling the silence with cold harmony. The wind caught the branches of the trees, pushing them aside, and he could see the night sky for a few moments. The stars seemed to surge and shine brighter at the sound of the unusual music. 

_ Even the wolves have someone to sing to,  _ he thought, and turned his attention back to the pot of soon-to-be-stew.

* * *

“Why did you bother to come here?”

Findekáno frowned, watching his sister fussing with the fire in her hearth. 

“Because I wanted to see you,” he answered, shifting in his chair. “Is that so unusual? We’re family.”

“Hah,” Írissë shot back, straightening up just long enough to shoot him a dark look. “Funny sort of family.” She poked at the sparking kindling with an iron poker, furious and bitter. “Are you sure you didn’t come here to gloat?”

“Gloat about what, exactly?” 

“The fact that  _ your  _ husband turned out to be a good person, perhaps?”

Findekáno winced, casting his eyes over the rest of the little kitchen they sat in. His sister’s home was small, and modest, and looked rather like she’d built it herself out of whatever she could find; Írissë was many things, but she had never mastered carpentry or architecture or woodworking. Still, it was a cozy place, and it was filled with signs of her having  _ lived  _ there, and that was a comfort after centuries of absence.

“I wasn’t going to talk about that,” he said. 

“Mhmm,” she replied, going to her cabinets and pulling out any number of dried vegetables. “Of course you weren’t. They never are.” Out came a long, wicked-looking carving knife, and a thick root; she went to work slicing it into thin pieces. 

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m searching for  _ myself _ this time. Not him, or anyone else.”

“You’re always searching for him,” she answered. “Always, since I can remember.” She laughed, still looking at her hands and the root. “You’re fooling yourself if you think this isn’t about him.”

“If you don’t want me here,” Findekáno said, changing the subject, “why are you feeding me?”

“Because you’re my brother,” she said, “and you were always decent to me. It’s the least I can do.”

“Rissë…”

“Shut up,” his sister muttered; he wondered if she was crying. The set of her shoulders had grown tight and miserable. “Shut up, would you? I - I’m not here to be pitied.”

_ I, at least, have no secret spouses,  _ her memory seemed to whisper in his ear; he recalled bright sparks of light in her brown eyes, and the way her hair spilled over her shoulders against the white of her gown.  _ In fact I doubt I shall marry at all.  _

He ate the bowl of soup she put in front of him in silence, and left with the rising of the Sun, never straying beyond her kitchen while he remained in her home.

* * *

The peaks of the Pelóri were immense, and much changed from Findekáno’s memory. In the light of the Trees, they had merely been mountains like any other range he had come to know well; now, they were utterly immense, and he’d heard rumors that their outer walls were smooth as glass or polished crystal. He’d made up his mind to see them, or at least to catch some glimpses, and that meant journeying through the pass and going out to the shores of the Sea beyond. Aman was not nearly as fenced in as it had once been, with the mountains seeming just as much figments of his imagination as real, grounded things that could be scaled, but this last bastion of defense against Moringotto was lovely in its own way regardless. 

The Blessed Realm was still lonely, or at least it felt that way. His bones and blood whispered songs of solitude when he woke, repeating refrains they learned in the night, and as his stores of food began to diminish and he was forced to forage and scavenge for what he needed, he found himself missing the company of other  _ eldar  _ more and more.

_ Why am I doing this?  _ he asked over and over again, day by day and night by night.  _ What does it accomplish? I know I’m miserable. I know everyone I’ve talked to seems quite convinced that I’m doing this because I need him, that I’m somehow  _ searching  _ for him like I did all those years ago in Mithrim.  _

_ But -  _ am  _ I really just doing that? _

He was camped in the shadow of a cluster of scrubby bushes, warmed by a fire and a bowl of scavenged porridge. Tilion was bright overhead, illuminating the whole of the little valley he was in; he was completely alone. Even the  _ kelvar  _ had deserted him. _ Am I really just endlessly, thoughtlessly orbiting around a star that’s no longer there? I stayed in the Halls because I wanted to. Because Beleriand  _ broke  _ me, because I was a failure of a High King and I never did anything that  _ mattered,  _ I was useless in battle and useless in court, and what was I supposed to do after I died? Pretend none of that happened? Pretend I  _ wasn’t  _ an utter disaster? _

Tears pricked at his eyes; he wiped them away and glared at himself and at the wrecked trail he’d left through the first Age of the world.

_ I’m not good for anything,  _ he thought bitterly.  _ Russandol would lecture me, or try and convince me otherwise, but if I  _ were,  _ would I be here? Would I be in the middle of nowhere, completely solitary, searching for something that I can’t even name? I - _

He shivered, drawing his knees up to his chest and letting the tears fall. For a moment he wondered if he looked ridiculous in the firelight, and then he was weeping too fiercely to care.

“I want him,” he gasped, voice heavy with grief and anguish and loneliness. “I want him so badly.”

* * *

The strangest part of visiting his brother was seeing Elenwë again. 

When he knocked on the door of their little house, she opened it almost immediately, and smiled so brightly at the surprise of seeing him that he was nearly blinded by her joy.

“You’re back!” she cried, throwing herself at him. They were more or less the same height, depending on who wore the taller shoe, and so she nearly knocked him over. “I was hoping you’d turn up whenever you bothered with getting out of the Halls!”

“It’s good to see you too,” he answered, returning her embrace. “How have you been?”

“We’ve been well,” she said, turning and calling over her shoulder. “Turvo! Your brother’s here!”

There was a crash from inside, and then footsteps came pounding up to the door.

“Arakáno - ?” the other  _ nér  _ cried, sliding to a stop in the doorway, staring at his wife and at Findekáno. His near-smile melted into an awkward line as he realized who he was looking at.

“Oh,” he said at last. “It’s you.”

“It is me,” Findekáno said. “I hope that’s all right.”

“It - it is,” Turukáno replied. “I mean - it’s not - oh, you understand.”

“I do.”

Elenwë cleared her throat loudly. “Come inside,” she said. “We’re just cleaning up from supper, but there’s some left over if you’re hungry.”

“I’m not - !” Findekáno began, only to be interrupted by his growling stomach.

“I think you probably are,” Turukáno said, laughing a little. “I won’t bite your head off if you stay for a while.”

“You’d better not,” Elenwë informed him, leaning into her husband. He had to bend down awkwardly to kiss the top of her head. “I like him.”

“Well. If you like him I suppose he’ll have to leave unharmed.”

Findekáno followed the two of them into their house. Unlike Írissë’s, it was built with some skill, and he had seen the signs of a small tilled garden behind it. Whatever they were doing with their lives, they weren’t  _ idle,  _ and he could see from their shared glances and lingering touches that they were happy. 

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Elenwë asked as she reached their kitchen and its small table. “Sit anywhere - we have a dining room but we never use it.”

“I’m traveling,” Findekáno said, slinging his pack off his shoulders and setting it down by the wall. “Seeing Valannor - well, the parts of Valannor that I haven’t seen yet.”

“I suppose it’s as good of a use of your time as any,” she answered, sitting down opposite him. “Turvo, dear, pull up a chair - join us, would you?”

“Must I?” her husband asked, glancing at Findekáno.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s your  _ brother.”  _

“I’d listen to her,” Findekáno said. “She knows what she wants.”

“She does,” Turukáno admitted. “I can’t fault her for that.” He ducked out of the kitchen for a moment, returning with a low stool, and seated himself at the end of the table, forming the end of a triangle between his wife and his brother.

“So,” Elenwë said. “Traveling.”

“Yes,” Findekáno said.

“Whatever  _ for?”  _ Turukáno asked. “It’s not as if we didn’t explore every inch of Aman before.”

“I’m going to the lonely places,” Findekáno said. “The unusual ones. I saw the outer walls of the Pelóri that look like glass now, and I’ve been to quiet forests and empty prairies. It’s really quite beautiful, despite all the silence and the solitude. You might like it. I know you’re much more fond of that sort of thing than I ever was.”

“Lonely places?” Elenwë cut in. “Are you lonely?”

“I…” Findekáno began, and then flinched violently, snapping his eyes down to the table..  _ Oh, damn it all.  _ Muk. Ercamando.  _ I haven’t told them. Either of them.  _ He glanced up at their hands, pale and brown both.  _ No business keeping secrets anymore, but… must I? _

_ They’re staring at me. I can  _ feel  _ them staring at me. So. Yes. _

He took a deep breath, lifted up his head, and looked Turukáno right in the eye.

“Turvo,” he said levelly, shocked at how steady his voice was even as he spoke, “I’m married, and I’ve been married since before we crossed the Ice.” 

His brother stared at him, mouth falling open in astonished shock. He tried and failed to speak, jaw working up and down as the color drained from his face, until finally he could gasp for air.

_ “What?”  _ he gasped. “To - to  _ whom?!” _

“Who do you think?” Findekáno replied, never shifting his gaze.

“I - you - oh,  _ damn,”  _ Turukáno groaned, leaning back and nearly falling off the stool. “Really?  _ Really?!” _

“Who?” Elenwë asked.

“Maitimo,” Turukáno muttered, somewhere between the table and the floor. “He went and married  _ Maitimo.” _

“I did,” Findekáno said.

“Oh, that explains  _ everything.”  _

“Must you be so dramatic about it?” Elenwë asked her husband. 

“Dramatic?  _ He let all of us think he was dead!  _ For  _ an entire year!  _ Because of  _ Maitimo!” _

“I did do that too,” Findekáno admitted. “Get up, Turvo.”

“I will when it’s registered that you were  _ married  _ \- wait, you said  _ before  _ the Ice!”

“That is exactly what I said, yes.”

“You - you kept it a secret from  _ everyone?”  _ Turukáno asked, clawing his way back to the table. 

“Not everyone. Írissë guessed.”

“Of course she did,” his brother muttered, shaking his head. 

“I saw her, too, before you. She  _ was  _ happy for me, before - well.”

“And she’s unhappy now?”

“She’s not exactly fond of reminders that married life is a state that one can exist in.”

“So she sniped at you and spent the whole of your visit waiting for you to say a single thing that might be even a little condescending?” his brother asked.

“Exactly,” Findekáno replied. “I - I’m sorry, too, I didn’t mean - well, we couldn’t really  _ tell  _ anyone, could we?”

“I - oh, damn it, it’s been so long that I can’t be  _ angry  _ with you, but - why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why  _ wouldn’t  _ you tell anyone?” Turukáno asked. “In Beleriand it’s not as if any of that nasty business from before  _ mattered.”  _

“He has a point,” Elenwë said. “What with the Aderthad, I mean - wasn’t the rift healed by what you did? All was forgiven, or so I’ve been led to believe.”

“You’d be surprised there,” Findekáno said, “though I’d forgotten you spent most of those centuries safe and sound in your little walled garden.”

“And that means I was ignorant of what passed beyond my borders?” Turukáno asked, and then shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. Seeing you again - it’s too easy to fall back into bitterness.”

“It is,” Findekáno agreed. “And I’m sorry for it.” They fell into an awkward silence, staring in turns at the table, and their hands, and each other. At last, his younger brother sighed and shook his head.

“I… I want to start again,” he said, and then spoke again before Findekáno could interrupt. “To refrain from all my old habits. To - to make things  _ right.”  _ There was some immense, nameless emotion behind each word, and as the sentences wound on he grew nearer and nearer to weeping. 

“I was poisoned by grief,” he explained, “and anger, and terror, and I saw you as someone who was so focused on his own selfishness that you’d risk our family’s safety for the sake of someone we all barely knew, and if - if I’d  _ known -  _ !”

“Turvo,” Findekáno said quietly, “we  _ chose _ not to tell anyone who didn’t put the pieces together on their own. That - that was  _ our _ fault.” He shrugged, looking at both other  _ eldar  _ with an apologetic smile. “Maybe if we’d trusted everyone else more, things might have been different.”

“It’s too late to change the past,” Elenwë interjected, “but we can build a better future.”

“Pithy,” Turukáno said, “and a little trite, but true as ever.” He looked at Findekáno, and the smile on his face was almost genuine. “Truce?”

“Truce,” the older  _ nér  _ said, smiling back. “Even if there wasn’t anything to declare a truce about.” 

“I’ve got another question before you two dissolve into reunions and tears,” Elenwë said, leaning forward and looking at her brother-by-marriage. “You’ve not explained what Maitimo has to do with your, ah, ‘traveling’.”

“I haven’t,” Findekáno said. “And the truth is I’m not really sure. I went back home, to Tirion, and found it utterly unbearable - ”

“It’s  _ awful,”  _ Elenwë interrupted.

“Dreadful,” Turukáno agreed with a groan. 

“We’ll go back for Tarnin Austa but not for anything else, and only sometimes,” she said, and then laughed at herself. “Oh, I’m sorry - continue?”

“It’s quite all right,” Findekáno said. “I wholeheartedly agree with you. It’s unbearable. But I stayed for so long in the Halls because I couldn’t decide for the longest time what it was I wanted to do, and now here I am in the wilds chasing - well, everyone I’ve talked to seems to think it’s  _ him,  _ but I’m not sure.”

“Why wouldn’t it be him?” Turukáno asked, half-sardonic. “You’re always trailing after him, like Atya does with Ammë.”

“I am  _ not,”  _ Findekáno protested, but his brother was laughing.

“You’re too easy to bait, Finno. You always were. Was it him that you stayed in the Halls for? Is he out, finally? We’re rather removed from any news, as you can see.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “No one knows. I doubt anyone will tell, if they  _ do  _ know, even if they’re aware of who we are to one another. This - well,  _ you  _ died, didn’t you? Atya said you did.  _ You  _ know how personal it is.”

“We do,” Elenwë said. “Námo didn’t let me out until he said I was ready, and until I wanted to go.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question,” Turukáno said. “You said you couldn’t decide what you wanted to do. Was that because of him?”

“You barely speak to me for five hundred years except in the most formal of formal letters, and you expect me to unburden my heart to you like you’re some kind of confidante?” Findekáno asked. “What kind of brother are you trying to be, anyway?”

“The kind who wants to undo the mess he made, if you’ll let him. And anyway, you’re clearly  _ looking  _ for some kind of guidance. Why not give the two of us a chance at it?”

“What gives you the wisdom necessary?”

“Raising a daughter, maybe,” Elenwë said, “or else - well, we’re still married, aren’t we? Actively, I mean. We didn’t separate and wander off into different paths. Clearly we know something about marriage.”

“When you put it that way, I suppose I can’t argue with it,” Findekáno answered. He sighed, and braced his elbows against the table, resting his chin in his hands. Despite the fact that he was the oldest in the room, he felt  _ young,  _ and inexperienced, and immature, when faced with his brother’s gravitas. “The truth is - well, it - I  _ miss  _ him, damn it all, and I want him  _ back,  _ and I’m afraid of that.”

“Why afraid?” Elenwë asked. 

“Because - well, do I really want to be married to him, or do I just want that familiarity?” He looked at both of the  _ eldar  _ at the table helplessly. “Do I actually, truly,  _ want  _ him? Am I secure in that? Or - well, am I making that choice because he’s always  _ been  _ there?” He could feel the tears coming back, and pushed on, hoping to quash them. “We married after the Darkening. The whole of our bond has been rooted in sorrow. And he was stable, and safe, and  _ grounding,  _ and the world was coming apart at the seams, and I could  _ rest  _ with him, but - is that what I  _ want,  _ now that it’s all over and I’m looking at an endless stretch of  _ yéni  _ that only end with all being made new again? It - he - I don’t  _ hate  _ him, I couldn’t, but so much of my memory of him is bound up in my memory of failure after failure after failure, and the dragon, and that thrice-damned battle, and I went through all that time in the Halls and now I’m so, so  _ lonely,  _ and - !”

“Finno,” Turukáno said gently, reaching out a hand and putting it on his arm. 

“What?” he asked defensively, flinching at his brother’s touch.

“If you didn’t want him, you wouldn’t be asking these questions.”

At that, Findekáno found his resolve cracking and breaking, and he lay his head down on the table and wept.

“I love him,” he said at last, in between great heaving sobs. “I love him, and I’ll  _ always  _ love him, and I want him back so  _ badly.”  _

* * *

At last, at long last, he came to the coast.

Turukáno and Elenwë had hosted him for a full phase of the moon, picking up the jagged pieces of his heart and watching as he haphazardly fitted them back together. In between the days and nights of farmwork and cooking and crafting and all the other bits of life needed to make existence more than morose introspection, he found he could breathe again, and that his way forward seemed more solid. Admitting to someone besides himself that he  _ wanted  _ Russandol, that he loved his husband still and that he wished they might reunite, was a weight off his shoulders, especially when faced with evidence that such reunions were possible. He’d had his parents, of course, but they parted amicably and with no great tragedy, and he doubted that they could imagine themselves in separate lives anymore; it had been healing, and worthwhile, to make amends with Turukáno and see his repaired marriage.

But wanderlust came calling, as always, and one morning he woke with the song of it in his bones once more, and he knew it was time to go. Somehow, despite the comfort of company, watching his brother live content and secure made him lonelier than ever. So he packed his bag, and accepted Elenwë’s offer of foodstuffs, and set out again. His feet carried him of their own accord - he had barely any idea of where he was going, but every morning he awoke with some certainty of direction that seemed to well up from the earth itself - and he walked, and walked, until he couldn’t walk any longer without attempting to will himself through the mountains.

He was far to the north of any city or village, though he passed houses built of unfamiliar stone and knew that he hadn’t totally escaped the presence of other  _ eldar.  _ Once upon a time, these places would have been dim and desolate, far from the light of the Trees upon Ezellohar. Now, though, they were as bathed in light as the rest of the world, though that did nothing for their isolation and the empty, eerie feeling that seemed to lay thick over the ground. The air was cold, thanks to the breezes coming in off the Sea, and when Findekáno slept he dreamed of mist and voices calling his name.

He found his final destination by accident, wandering in the grey morning before true dawn. The ground stopped before him, turning from shades of shadowed brown and green to a great yawning pit that opened up almost beneath his feet. He took a step outward, and found nothing, falling backward onto his pack with a cry.

“What - ?” he asked aloud, gasping.  _ I thought the Pelóri didn’t give way until the Calacirya… _

Suddenly, all at once, the horizon before him lit up in a blaze of fire. Arien was rising in the East, setting the Sea alight beneath her and turning the world rosy and gold. He was staring at the water from atop a grassy bluff, watching the dawn illuminate everything in a handful of dazzling seconds. Beneath him -  _ directly  _ beneath him, as he’d almost tumbled into it - was a small bay, a tiny crack in the otherwise impenetrable mountains. There were a few hardy bushes that clung to life around its outer edges, but most of what he saw was barren sand, bordering on rock and earth. Not a creature stirred, not even one of the tiny creeping things that made their home in such places - 

\- Findekáno shivered, his eyes fixed on the waves lapping the shore. What he saw there chilled him to the bone. Someone had been to this lonely, impossible place, though he couldn’t begin to guess  _ who. _

Rising up from the water, stretching out into the Sea, were a series of crude doorways, crafted of stone. They arced away from the shore in an elegant curve, almost daring anyone who saw them to pass between them and follow their path. The first was close to the beach, and the last was perhaps thirty ells out. Were he to try and reach it, he would almost certainly need to swim. 

_ Not that I’m going to do that,  _ Findekáno thought, getting to his feet.  _ The waves are furious today, and I have little desire to meet a second death so soon as a result of being pounded against the shore or the Pelóri.  _ Still, he had to admit he was curious -  _ all these days and days and days of traveling, and I’ve never seen anything like this -  _ and so he carefully slid down the bluff and came to a halt behind the bushes. His suspicion was confirmed, now that he was a little closer - these were not the remnants of mountains, or rocks that emerged on their own from the sand. 

“Someone made these,” he mused aloud. “But who?”

He slid his pack off of his shoulders, letting it sit on the ground.  _ I’m not going to risk getting my dinner wet, as I’m probably not going to have any luck catching fish here. But I want to get a look at those - sculptures? Can I call them that?  _ He glanced out at the stone again, squinting in the light of the early morning.  _ They can’t really be anything else.  _

Findekáno made his way down the beach, striding through the waves, only remembering that he’d neglected to take his boots off when he took a step into deeper water and something cold and wet poured into them . 

_ “Muk,”  _ he cursed, sighing and looking down at his soaked stockings. “It’s too late to bother with getting them off now, I suppose. I might as well go on.”

He was very near to the first doorway, and he realized that his earlier assessment of them as crude was inaccurate. Each piece was hewn from a single piece of polished rock, carefully sanded and buffed to capture the veins of crystal and color that threaded through the otherwise grey stone, and they were joined together by masterfully crafted interlocking joints rather than twine or mortar. 

_ I was right,  _ he thought.  _ This  _ is  _ art, and purposeful art too. But what does it mean? _

He reached out and touched the closest pillar, running his fingers over it and tracing the threads of gleaming white and black. Suddenly, his hand dipped, and its nails caught in a crack that he hadn’t seen until he was feeling it. 

“Erosion, maybe,” he mused aloud, following the channel around the other side of the pillar. It joined up with another crack, and then another, until Findekáno realized that he was staring at a finely crafted web of divots and dents. It stretched high over his head, and when he bent to examine the pillar more closely he saw that it reached below the waterline. The other side of the door was much the same, and when he focused on the next closest sculpture he realized that he could see a similar network of cracks on  _ it  _ as well.

_ These edges are sharp,  _ he thought, his fingers sliding back and forth over the pristine angles.  _ And the Sea smooths all corners.  _

He closed his eyes, listening to the waves on the shore, and he could feel the edges of a song in their rhythm.  _ I’m no musician - could this be done by the water? Or is it merely the echo of the same notes that shaped our world? _

_ No. I’ve seen Maiarin art, haven’t I? As a boy, on a visit to Valmar. This is much too grounded for them. And whoever’s made it has met Men - the joints in the stone are Mannish. I’d recognize them anywhere.  _

“I doubt I’ll get an answer,” he said to himself, looking down at the water that was coming over the tops of his boots. “But - !”

A wave, far greater than any that had come before, crashed into the gate, slamming into him and knocking him down. Salt and sand poured into his mouth as he was pushed up onto the beach, and by the time the wave retreated his hair had come undone from the single braid he’d been keeping it in. He was left sputtering and gasping on the gently sloping shore, now quite thoroughly soaked.

_ “Ercamando,”  _ he groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “What in the Halls was - ?”

His voice trailed off, his attention caught once more by the strange door, if it was even meant to be a door at all. It was dripping water from the wave that had driven him back, and had withstood the onslaught with far more grace than he had, except that the careful spiderweb of cracks that had covered its surface was gone. 

“I’m seeing things,” Findekáno muttered, getting back to his feet. His boots were soaked, and each step produced ugly sounds he did his best to ignore, but that mattered less than puzzling out what it was he’d just witnessed. “I have to be seeing things.”

But his eyes had not deceived him. The sharp-edged pattern was gone, wiped away by the wave as if it didn’t exist.

“That’s the song I’m catching,” he said, glancing out at the ocean and back at the doorway. “It’s undoing the work that whoever made this is putting in. No wonder the cracks were so fresh. But…”

…  _ if they need to be replaced daily, won’t whoever made them be coming  _ back?

He looked back at the shore, and at his pack.  _ I’ve evidently stumbled onto some kind of private work,  _ he thought.  _ A conversation between the artist and the ocean, or something of the sort. And yet - _

_ \- and yet I’m curious, and I have no  _ reason  _ to be, but it’s devouring me.  _

_ I can’t just leave until I have an answer for this. I  _ have  _ to know why. _

He walked back up onto the beach in long, awkward strides, leaving water behind him.  _ You’re being ridiculous,  _ a voice in his head said, but despite that and despite his common sense he couldn’t shake the sudden burning need to understand what, exactly, was happening in this paradoxical place. 

“If I’m intruding,” he told himself, stripping out of his wet clothes and into a dry tunic and leggings, “I’ll apologize, and make a graceful exit. But - damn it all, I have to  _ know,  _ and I won’t have any peace until I do.”

No one came to the bay for that entire day, leaving Findekáno to do as he pleased. In the absence of anything else, he explored the little crescent of sand quite thoroughly, mapping out every curve and imperfection in the coastline. At the northern end there was a shelf of rock that was formed out of the foot of the mountains, blocking off any further exploration, and the southern end was much the same. No birds came to nest where he sat, and no fish swam up close to the shore. All that seemed to dwell in the crags of rock was a sense of eerie loneliness.

“I feel as if I’m being watched,” he said to no one as night fell. “As if an  _ ausa,  _ or one of the Houseless, is looking over my shoulder.” He shuddered at the thought, and found himself glad that he was sitting between the scrubby bushes and the bluff.  _ No one will be able to catch me unawares.  _ Even as he thought that he laughed -  _ This is Aman! What am I afraid of? -  _ but the fear left a chill in his bones regardless. The light was fading fast, turning dim and blue; he pulled out his cloak and blanket and made himself a bed on the sand. 

“If they come in the night, I won’t mind missing them,” he decided, shutting his eyes. “The waves are worse now than they were earlier. It’s their idiocy.” Before long, he was asleep, plunged into yet another misty dream. 

* * *

It was the sound of metal on stone that roused him. He woke slowly, and then all at once, sitting up with his heart pounding in his ears and his hair falling over his shoulders. He caught a glimpse of dark and twisting curls coated in sand and made a face, but his inevitable battle with a comb was quickly forgotten when he realized that the noise hadn’t stopped.

_ It’s too random to be something beating against the mountains with the waves,  _ he thought, sudden excitement driving him into speculation.  _ And there aren’t birds that strike stone with that sound, are there? _

He sprang to his feet in a frenzy of desperate anticipation, though he had no real idea of what it was that waited for him down by the water. His bed, and pack, and boots were so far from his mind that they might as well not exist, and he left his little camp in disarray as he pushed through the bushes. It was very late in the day, just before sunset; the sand was cool against his feet as he ran down the beach and the sky was purple and blue and red. He had slept for nearly a full turn of Sun and Moon both, and he was left invigorated.

_ What is it I’m running toward?  _ he asked himself, only stopping when his steps turned wet and the foaming waves came up to his ankles.  _ What have I found? _

There was someone further out in the water, with a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other. He - it  _ was  _ a he - was focused on the closest doorway, his whole body signaling his intense concentration. He - 

\- he was tall, so tall it took Findekáno’s breath away, and the loose-fitting shirt and trousers he wore were soaked with sea spray and clung to the broad shoulders and powerful thighs that they might otherwise conceal, and his skin was pale, and his hair fell down his back in a glorious unbroken line of red -

“Russandol?” Findekáno gasped, and then realized he’d spoken aloud.  _ I’m dreaming,  _ he thought,  _ because he’s turning to look at me, he’s going to see me and it won’t be him, or it will be, and I’ll know I’m asleep - ! _

The  _ nér  _ in the water was looking right at him, and the face was one he’d kissed every inch of, and the eyes that looked out of it were burning silver. 

“Hello,” Findekáno said, because he couldn’t think of what else to say, and his heart felt as though it would burst if he kept silent.

Maitimo gaped at him, and dropped his mallet and chisel into the water.


	3. Have To Live Haunted

For a long time, they stared at one another, silent and unmoving. Findekáno found that somehow, even after all his seemingly endless angst, he had nothing to say, and the sound of the waves in the bay was all that he could hear. 

_I -_ he thought, reaching out one hand, but his resolve failed and he let his arm drop down to his side. _I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you so, I love you even now!_

“You’re back,” Russandol said, and his voice was deep and warm and _whole,_ no longer rasping and damaged, and the sound of it made Findekáno go weak in the knees. His husband - _husband! -_ was standing so that the sun was shining through the Pelóri, casting long shadows and crowning him in glory, turning every drop of water that ran down his arms to pure light and casting rays of fire out over his hair, and he was here, and he was _himself,_ even without the scars that had mapped themselves into their shared memory.

 _I want to fall into his arms and never leave,_ he thought, but something in Russandol’s eyes made him hesitant.

“I am,” he said. He couldn’t stop the careful smile that was creeping up over his lips. _What do I say? What do I_ do, _now I’ve found him? I have to say something, if I can find my voice._ His eyes lingered over shoulders and chest and steady hands. The distance between them couldn’t have been more than a few feet now, and yet it seemed an impassable divide. _I’m too far from him. I want to fold myself into his embrace and never leave, I want to find his lips and fill them with every word I never said to him, I want - !_

He was blind to all else but the sudden, sharp-edged reality of Russandol’s presence; he had no sense of the steps he took to cross the space separating them as he fell into his husband’s arms. The other _nér_ returned his embrace almost instinctually, and something shifted and broke and reformed between them. Findekáno smelled salt and sweat as his face pressed against the pale shirt that did just as much to reveal chiseled muscle as conceal it, and there were tears in his eyes.

“I’ve missed you,” he managed to say at last. “I’ve missed you so _much,_ Russo, I - !”

His husband sighed, and let him go; their eyes met as they stepped away from one another again. What Findekáno saw there astonished him, and sent his heart plummeting into his gut. Before, the shadow of pain had been clear to see on Russandol, though it was often masked or dimmed and greyed by a smile or a witty remark. Now, though, despite everything, despite time and healing and their presence in the Blessed Realm, his agony was clearly visible, etched into every curve of his face. His once-bright eyes were dull and distant, and his mouth was set in a grim line.

 _There’s something really wrong,_ Findekáno realized; the thought chilled him. _He’s - he’s more hurt_ now _than he’s ever been in his life._

_What if it’s because of me?_

“I’ve got food, if you’re hungry,” he said. He had to say _something_ to break the dreadful silence and maybe bring some life back into his husband’s _hröa._

“What?” Russandol asked, evidently just as absent-minded as he was. 

Findekáno glanced at the stone, and the painstakingly made cracks, by way of explanation. “That can’t be easy work.”

“It isn’t” the other _nér_ said, and again his voice was enough to leave Findekáno sliced open to the bone. _Oh, please, Russandol,_ veru-nînya, melindo-nînya, _say something!_

The seconds dragged on into one another, and then at last he continued with “What kind of food?” 

It was better than nothing. Findekáno grimaced, both at the miserable situation and at the terrible choice of food he had to offer. “Traveler’s fare, mostly. Dried fruits, and strips of venison, and those ration bars I was so fond of that tasted like spice.”

“Ah, yes,” Russandol replied, a hint of amused sarcasm creeping into his voice. “My favorite sort of meal.”

“If I’d known you were here I would have brought _láramasta,_ but I _didn’t_ know, so you’re going to have to live with this.” It was easy - too easy - to fall back into comfortable banter and their half-forgotten partnership. It ought to have been comforting.

It felt like an old familiar blanket that had developed an inner lining of shattered glass.

“Or I’m not,” his husband said, bending down and retrieving his tools from beneath the water’s surface, “and you can eat like you’re on patrol while _I_ have fish.”

“There’s fish here?” Findekáno asked. There was nothing else _to_ ask.

“If you know where to look,” Russandol said. He pivoted on one heel, turning his attention back to his work. The sound of the chisel resumed easily, almost as if it were meant to fill the space left by their conversation.

Findekáno winced. _I’m not going to let him brush me off, but -_

 _\- but what if_ he _doesn’t want me?_

The thought chilled him to the very core of his _fëa,_ and the water sweeping in around his ankles wasn’t helping. Suddenly, the world had an entirely new axis upon which to revolve - it had never occurred to him, in all his musings, in all his time both within and without the Halls - that perhaps it was _Russandol_ who had moved on. 

_I have my proof I want him,_ he thought, feeling his fingertips go numb with shock. _I can’t bear the thought of losing him. So - so I won’t._ He set his teeth, and squared his shoulders, and stepped closer to his husband, letting his eyes linger over arms and hands - _both of them, oh, Valar -_ and waist.

“Did you make these?” he asked.

“Yes,” Russandol answered, eyes fixed on a precise spot in the stone. “I took up sculpting, after I got back.”

“After you - wait, how _long_ \- ?”

His husband shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I died.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Does it matter?”

“Even if it doesn’t, we’re three thousand or so years into the third Age of the world, by solar reckoning,” Findekáno said. “And I’ve gathered that you died perhaps another three thousand or so years before that, though I couldn’t say for sure.”

“Oh,” Russandol said. “Thank you.” He shifted the chisel down and went to work again. They had always dwelt so easily in comfortable silence. The change was startling. 

“What are you doing?” Findekáno asked dumbly, berating himself even as he spoke. _What a stupid thing to say!_

“I have to fix these every day. The Sea keeps undoing the cracks.”

“I noticed that yesterday. Is it some kind of conversation?”

“I - I’m not sure I follow.”

“As a statement, as art. You make something that the Sea undoes, and then make it again. I thought it must be indicative of a dialogue.”

“No, it’s indicative of Ulmo being an ass.”

Findekáno couldn’t help but chuckle. “You know it’s him?”

“I know,” Russandol said, and there was a distant look in his eyes that gave his husband a chill. 

“What - what do all of these mean? Since you made them.”

Russandol sighed, and shook his head, and stepped away from the pillar. He pointed to it, and to the whole frame that it was part of.

“Fëanárion,” he said. He moved closer to the other _nér,_ and pointed at the next gate in the series. “Maitimo.” His arm bobbed up and down as he slid it from gate to gate, pointing to each one. “Nelyafinwë. Russandol. Maedhros.” The last word was evidently sour in his mouth; he practically spat it out. “The others you wouldn’t know. A gate to pass through for every name I’ve known, all cracked and broken and warped.”

 _Except one,_ he added silently, and Findekáno flinched to find their long-dormant marriage bond sparking to life, filling their thoughts with an intimate warmth. In spite of everything - the awkward embrace, the silences, the knife-edged conversation - _this_ was still there, still fixing them together, wrapping about their _fëar_ until they weren’t sure who was who. It was almost too intimate, after their cold and frustrated conversation, and yet Findekáno knew they were both reveling in the sudden heat.

 _I know him too well,_ he realized. _I can feel him even now. He_ does _want me, this is proof of it, so -_

 _\- so why is he holding back?_

By the time their eyes met again they were both blushing, hearts pounding in tandem.

“Have breakfast with me?” Findekáno asked impulsively. Russandol flinched, his mouth falling open, inviting a kiss. “Please,” he added as an afterthought, wondering what had happened to the world that he worried about _politeness_ with the love of his life.

“Breakfast?” There was a hint of an old good humor, the shadow of what might have been a smirk. “It’s nearly sunset.”

“And I’ve just gotten up,” Findekáno retorted, forcing bright determination into every word. “So it’s breakfast.”

 _“You’re_ chipper.”

“I’m seeing you again. How can I be anything else?”

A long pause, and the silver eyes turned dark again. “Frankly, I’d rather work on my sculptures.”

 _I’m losing him. I can’t lose him. I have to try something, anything!_ “Come _on,_ Russo. We have tomorrow for art. And the day after, and the day after.”

For an impossibly long moment, his husband said nothing, only staring at him with a dubious expression. Then he shook his head.

“Oh, all right,” he answered, moving up onto the beach properly in long, familiar strides. “But only if _you_ eat those damn ration bars.”

“Gladly,” Findekáno said, following behind.

Russandol built the fire, which was the strangest thing yet - they had found themselves alone countless times before, but it had never been he who bothered with flint and tinder and kindling. Regardless, he was methodical, and quick, fetching dead wood from higher up the beach; Findekáno couldn’t look away from his hands. They were firm, and solid, and as they worked to strike a spark and turn dried moss and warped branches into light and heat the other _nér_ found himself imagining what they would feel like running over his skin, holding him close, grasping and caressing - 

“You’re blushing again,” Russandol said, and he let out the breath he’d been holding all at once. 

“I can’t help it,” he replied. The laugh was only a little forced. “Do you know how long it’s - oh, well, I suppose you do.”

“I do,” his husband said, sitting back as the fire caught. “There. Now all we need is some fish.”

“Wait,” Findekáno said, getting up and scattering sand everywhere; this earned him a sharp look from Russandol. “I think I might have something better.” He ran further up the shore, to his haphazard camp and his forgotten pack, and returned in a moment with a cloth bag in one hand and his pot and waterskin in the other.

“I just remembered I had this,” he explained, undoing the buttoned flap of the bag. He set everything out in a half-circle around himself, drawing out paper packets and unfolding the wrappings. “Elenwë gave me a dry soup base, the day I left.”

“You’ve seen Elenwë?”

“Yes, and Turukáno,” he said. 

“Why in Arda would you subject yourself to that?”

“He’s my brother, why _wouldn’t_ I?”

“You and I have very different ideas of what siblings are due.”

“Maybe.”

“No _maybe_ about it. I’m never speaking to any of my brothers again.”

“Any of them?”

“Well. Moryo, I guess. The twins, if they want. None of the others.”

“Hm,” Findekáno said, raising his eyebrows. “But -”

“But? You’re just going to leave me hanging like that?”

“I don’t feel like arguing with you on an empty stomach. Anyway, this is a cream and mushroom soup, I think.” He held up each packet as he spoke. “There’s powdered milk in the broth, and dried spices and mushrooms, and here’s the ball with all the herbs. I don’t know about you, but that sounds better than trying to catch fish for hours.”

“You have a point,” Russandol replied, picking up the pot and waterskin. “I’ve been living more or less on what I could catch since I came here.”

“Why _did_ you come here, anyway? Why not tell everyone you were back?”

The other _nér_ let out a sharp, mirthless laugh. “Are you mad?”

“What?”

“Why would I subject myself to that, after everything I’ve done?”

“I don’t know,” Findekáno said, “because they’re your family, and they love you?”

The look his husband gave him seemed to have been previously reserved for very stupid livestock. 

“My family doesn’t love me,” Russandol said. “This I know for a fact.”

“Technically,” Findekáno said, “I’m family. Ought I be insulted?”

This earned him only silence, and a sudden intense focus from Russandol on filling the pot with what little fresh water they had. He frowned, and pressed on.

“What, is that a yes?”

“It’s a ‘drop the subject’, I think,” the other _nér_ informed him. 

“Did you mean to insult me, then?”

“I don’t have to talk about this.”

“Yes,” Findekáno said, shifting onto his knees so he could be closer to his husband’s height, “I think you do.” A deep breath, and then the plunge. “Russo - ”

_“What.”_

“What’s going on?”

The other _nér_ flinched again, almost seeming to deflate. The question had pierced some deeply buried armor, or opened an old wound; all his sardonic posturing was gone in an instant. When at last he answered, his voice was strained and brittle.

“I can’t pretend anymore.”

“Pretend about what?”

Another look that seemed to compare Findekáno to a particularly unintelligent sheep.

He tried again. “You - you don’t _have_ to pretend. You can tell me.” _Please tell me, let me help you, let me love you…_

Russandol stilled, almost bracing himself for an impact or a blow. 

“Did you mean to leave me?” he murmured at last, barely loud enough to be heard.

Findekáno sat back hard, hitting the sand with a dull _thud._

 _What? I -_ what?!

“No,” he said, shocked and confused and hot and cold all at once. “I’m not - I don’t…” He could feel the tears threatening to fall, even now. “I - no, Russo, I had no idea, why would - ?”

Russandol’s shoulders were shaking violently. He was wrestling with something, dredging it up through untold _yéni_ of pain and misery. Suddenly he was no longer foreign and strange - this was a keen, desperate struggle that Findekáno was all too familiar with. _Whatever he means to say, it’s important, and it will take everything from him when it comes._

“Russandol?” he asked again, cautious, almost nervous. His husband was staring at the pot of water, and when he spoke it was flat and toneless and frightened.

“When I left,” he said, “one of Námo’s Maiar told me you were there, still in the gardens.”

“How did - ?”

“I begged,” he said, eyes fixed on the dark metal, “and pleaded, and demanded - I had to know, I had to know what happened to you, and they told me, and - and…”

“And what?”

Another agonizing silence, punctuated only by ragged breathing. Findekáno had nearly given up hope that he would get an answer when it came.

“And _why,_ Finno?” The words were jagged, torn, agonizing. “I - what did I _do?”_

“Do? You - you didn’t _do_ anything, Russo, what are you - ?”

“If I didn’t do anything, why would you stay when you _knew_ I’d left?”

Findekáno’s voice dried up and vanished in an instant. He was left staring at Russandol, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. 

“I - I _what?”_

“They wouldn’t have ignored what I said, they - they would have _told_ you, wouldn’t they?”

“I - I had no idea, Russo, I didn’t - !”

 _“I waited for you,”_ the other _nér_ moaned, the sound mournful and miserable.

Findekáno gaped at him, flinching at the exclamation. 

“I - I waited _so long,”_ he continued bitterly, twisting up his mouth as he spoke as though the words burned him. “I went to our lake, and I sat there for Eru knows how long - I waited, and waited, and _waited,_ until I realized you weren’t coming, and then - you were the only one in that whole cursed House I bothered to care about enough to wait for, and you were _gone,_ and -!” His whole body heaved as he spoke, forcing out the words. “You _left_ me, and I don’t know who I am without you but you stayed behind, and - and _now_ what am I meant to do? Pretend none of that happened? Pretend - pretend I didn’t _deserve_ it?” He looked up at his husband, shattered and broken. “Tell me what to do,” he pleaded. “You’re here now, you came to taunt me, _tell me what to do!”_

Findekáno was shaking as well, badly enough that his fingers had dug themselves into the sand. His eyes had filled with tears, and they were streaming down his face and blinding him. Every word Russandol said left him choking on his own breath, piercing him through as surely as if he’d been stabbed. _I made a mistake,_ he realized. Every thought was jagged and furious. _I made a mistake, I made a_ terrible _mistake - I never should have bothered to stay, I should have pushed and pushed for my own release - !_

“Please,” he gasped at last, and there was sand in his hair and sand in his eyes and sand under his fingernails, _“please,_ Russo, I - I didn’t _know!”_

Dead silence was his only answer; when the tears had faded enough to lend him back his sight he found his husband staring at him, shocked and stricken. Russandol was _wrecked,_ his mouth hanging open and his face deadly pale. He looked sick, or dying, as if his blood was draining out onto the beach.

“You - you didn’t - they didn’t _tell_ you?” he asked, and his voice was thin and reedy.

“No!” Findekáno cried. “They didn’t tell me _anything!_ I - I didn’t stay because I hated you, or because I couldn’t stand you! I stayed because I needed to _heal,_ Valar damn it all, but I would have argued my way out if I’d only known - !” Words deserted him, and he was back to sobbing and trying and failing to breathe. There was a horrible noise on the air like a dying animal’s last gasps; he realized it was _him._

“You - _Finno,_ I - !”

“I’m out here because I couldn’t bear being alive without you,” he said, curling in on himself. “I wanted to find you, but no one knew where you _were,_ they all thought you must surely still be _dead,_ and I tried - I tried so _hard,_ to be _happy,_ to be _hopeful,_ but all I wanted, all I thought of, was _you,_ until I was certain I’d go mad, and - and what _am_ I without you, Russo? What have I _ever_ been?” By now, he was utterly spent, exhausted and shivering. The world was dim, and dark, and the fading light bled into shadows. His eyes shut, but he couldn’t stop weeping. 

“I didn’t know,” he said miserably. “I - I swear it, I didn’t know, I tried to find you, I tried to keep my promises, I’m sorry, I’m so _sorry.”_ _I hurt him, I_ hurt _him, I broke the only promise I ever made to anyone that really mattered - !_

“Oh, damn me to a thousand deaths,” a voice from somewhere beyond his _hröa_ muttered, and suddenly there were arms around him, picking him up from the ground and surrounding him in warmth. 

“Finno,” the same voice said, and he felt it rumbling through whatever it was he was resting on. “Finno.”

He wept, losing himself to his tears.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, cradled in softness and in strength, only that when he opened his eyes there were stars overhead. 

“What happened?” he murmured, and then realized that he was being held by Russandol and moved to sit up.

“I was a fucking idiot,” the other _nér_ said, not releasing him. “That’s what happened.”

“You’re not a fucking idiot.”

“I’m perfectly capable of such behavior, when I get it into my head to be silly about something.” There was a hand on his back, tracing slow circles over him as if it was enraptured with the feel of his shirt sliding over his skin.

“You weren’t being silly.” His words were breathy, and exhausted, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to abandon this conversation yet.

“I was,” his husband said. “Don’t deny it.”

“In what way?”

“Falling apart like that. I - I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t you dare.”

“Why not?”

“I… if I thought _you’d_ abandoned me, I’d have been far angrier,” Findekáno admitted. _“You_ were nice.”

“I was not.” 

“I’ve seen you cruel,” he retorted. “That was nice.”

“If you say so,” his husband said, in a light tone that said _I don’t believe you but you’re too kind to me anyway._ “The soup’s on, by the way. It’s nearly ready.”

“Oh,” Findekáno said, trying to turn around. He succeeded only in nuzzling into Russandol’s neck, which drew a soft gasp from the other _nér._ He smiled, and debated kissing the flesh beneath his lips; he ultimately decided against it.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Russandol asked.

“I don’t know. I was hungry earlier, but… well.”

“You ought to eat regardless. We’re both in need of it, after all that sobbing.”

“Hah,” he answered, resting his head against chest and collarbone. “We could rival the Sea with the tears we’ve shed.”

“Maybe so,” Russandol replied, somewhere between relieved and mournful. They sat on the sand, listening to the waves hit the shore, until neither of them could say how much time had passed. The minutes and hours seemed to creep into one another. There was only _now,_ and the chill of the night air, and the stars overhead, and the warmth between them. 

“I really didn’t know,” Findekáno murmured at last, dredging himself up from half-sleep to speak one final time. He could smell the soup now, nearly done. “If - if I had, I wouldn’t have hurt you. Wouldn’t have abandoned you.”

“I… I _know_ that,” his husband said with a sigh. “Really. I do. I think - I think I’ve probably _always_ known that.”

“Then why all of this?”

“Because I didn’t trust myself to be right.”

Findekáno chuckled. “You ought to work on that. You have good sense, sometimes.” 

“Oh, horse shit,” Russandol answered.

“What? You do!”

“Debatable,” came the answer, but it was bemused rather than angry and loathing. 

“What’s debatable? You ruled the Eastern Marches for centuries, and you managed to outlive _me._ I’d call that good sense.”

“Hah.”

“Don’t ‘hah’ me, you know I’m right.”

“Even if you are, I - I don’t do well alone. You know that.”

“I do,” Findekáno agreed. Their marriage bond was awake once more, coiling comfortably around the both of them; he was tempted to follow where it led. “That’s why I’m not leaving you again.” 

“We were close to tearing one another apart not half a day ago, and now you’re sure you won’t leave me?”

“I would have torn _myself_ apart first,” he corrected. “Don’t burn the soup.”

 _“You’re_ telling _me_ how to cook.”

“I am. See? Some things are different.”

“And some things are just the same,” Russandol said; it was a warm realization, and it seemed to fill the spaces between them. 

“They are,” he replied. “Wake me up when the soup’s ready, would you?” 

A long, expectant pause, and then “You’re awfully quick to forgive me.”

“You’re my other half,” Findekáno said. “Forgiving you is just forgiving myself, but writ large.”

“Hm,” the other _nér_ mused. “That puts me in rather a terrible position, doesn’t it?”

“Oh? How so?”

“I’m terrible at forgiving myself, aren’t I?”

Findekáno couldn’t argue with that, no matter how he tried. 

“You should just get better at it,” he decided at last, curling up in Russandol’s arms. “Follow my excellent example.”

“What excellent example?” his husband teased. “You’ve never forgiven yourself for anything.”

Findekáno grumbled at that, pressing his face into a shirt that had shed its earlier scents for smoke and some spice he couldn’t name. 

“We’ll just have to figure out how to do that together, I suppose,” he said as his eyes shut. “After all, we have all of eternity now, don’t we?”

“Mm,” Russandol answered, pressing a warm kiss to the top of his head. “We do.”

Findekáno put his arms around his husband as best he could, letting sleep take him without a fight this time.

 _Your heart is the only place that I call home,_ he said silently, and he was met with a blinding light in the shared space between their thoughts that filled him from head to toe with warmth. _And I would have sought you out even on the Hither Shores. I swear it._

This time, when Lórien took him, he did not dream. 


End file.
